


Like a Fairy Tale

by MzyraJane



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MzyraJane/pseuds/MzyraJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers a time when there were two young princes who shared a kiss in the snow by the lake - but Reek is not a prince.</p><p>It's a little like Cinderella, except with no magic and worse abuse.<br/>The rape (and also mutilation) are more alluded to than anything, but warning for it anyway. F'ing Ramsay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Fairy Tale

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up, had this idea and then wrote it straight out. Unemployment FTW?  
> Now off crying in my soul, having looked at all the stuff for Robb Stark week on tumblr. Goddammit, GRRM.

He dreamed of a new and beautiful place: the young, dark haired prince from islands amongst rough seas had never seen snow before, but it fell gently and lay about in perfect chilly drifts, decorating the castle of Winterfell like the sugar on a cake. He was shown how to roll the stuff into a ball and throw it like a stone, but one that wouldn't hurt anyone, by the other young prince with his red curls and pretty blue eyes. Nothing of what he saw in that new land was so beautiful and perfect as he was. They were only to be together for a few months, fostering relations between their homelands after war, but those were the best few months anyone would ever have. Playing and laughing, and then, one day, stood by the lake, their cheeks and noses made red by the cold, they took each other's faces in their hands and kissed for the first time, sweet and gentle and better than anything the island prince had ever known.

Savouring the dream, he thought he could still feel a gentle hand on his face, though he knew what happened next. When the island prince returned home, the truth was discovered and there was shouting, violence and blood worse than anything the young prince had ever known before. And then he was no longer a prince, or at home. But the hand still felt so real, burning through the dream.

He opened his eyes and it was all that he could do not to immediately flinch away and cower.

"What do you dream of, my Reek?" Ramsay leered. "It seemed such a _happy_ dream..."

He swallowed and felt the tears well. "You, my Lord. I dream of serving you. It's all that I want."

"Reek," he sighed, his gently stroking Reek's cheek with his thumb more terrifying than the blows from his fists, "what have I told you about lying? I can always tell when you lie."

"No, please, I mean it, please- I'll do anything, _please-_ "

"And what have I told you about that word? You use it too much."

"I'm _sorry,_ I'll do anything my Lord, anything you want."

"You need to be punished for your lies," and now the grip tightened onto his ear, pulling him from the ground painfully, tears falling.

" _My Lord..._ " was all he was left to beg with.

Ramsay pulled him right up to his face and frowned. "Don't you want to be punished, Reek? Do you think you should just be _allowed_ to get away with such misbehaviour?!"

He just cried; there was no good answer to that.

Ramsay backhanded him with his spare hand. " _Answer me._ "

He shook. "No my Lord."

"Good. Then you know you deserve what's coming."

 

He was still shaking two hours later, curled up on the floor by the feasting table while Ramsay and his men finished the food, having already finished with Reek over that same table. He hurt all over, terrified, ashamed and miserable at their treatment, but his arm was worst and worse than usual. He thought it broken. Just like he was.

Ramsay came over and kicked him in the back as they started to leave. "Clean up the mess, and then sweep the floor. I expect it done when I return."

"Yes my Lord." He wouldn't manage it, not with his arm like this, but likely he would be punished in either case - though sometimes, _rarely,_ he wasn't punished at all and he would cry in relief and gratitude instead. He stood shakily after Ramsay was gone, legs wanting to give out at the pain, but he forced himself to continue. If he wanted to eat - and he was _starving_ \- he would be allowed only what leftovers he could find amongst their plates. Tiny pieces of meat left on the bones, gristle cut away, small vegetables knocked from the plates and forgotten; it was nowhere near enough, but it might well be all he got. 

He managed the table slowly, then went to sweeping with his unbroken left arm - the one he didn't favour. His attempts would be feeble and scarcely worth bothering, but he had to _try_ ; it was all that was left to him.

But in his clumsiness he made it worse, knocking a pile of papers off a side table. He knelt to quickly pick them up and put them back and hope in vain that Ramsay would understand- but a name caught his eye on one of them. He shouldn't read it: he had been punished so badly in the past for being nosy, he should know only what Lord Ramsay thought he should, but it was signed _Robb Stark, Prince of Winterfell_. The images of his dream came back: that curly red hair, heart-stealing blue eyes, soft pale skin gone pink in the cold, beautiful lips pulled tight in a dazzling smile... But he had never known that boy: he was Reek, only Reek, Ramsay's Reek. He was already crying so much at the pain that he could scarcely read the rest. _You are cordially invited to a grand feast in Winterfell_ \- he was holding a feast and Ramsay would go, Ramsay would get to _see_ him-

Reek's head was pulled back suddenly as his hair was grabbed, and he shrieked and dropped the letter. "What have you got there, Reek?"

He didn't even try to deny it, he'd been caught red-handed. The tears fell faster as he closed his eyes: he could lose another finger for this.

Reek could feel himself pulled about as Ramsay moved to pick the letter up without loosening his hold on Reek's hair. There was a noise of amusement. "Did you think this was addressed to you, Reek?"

He shook his head. "No my Lord. I'm sorry my Lord. I'd never be invited to something like that my Lord."

"And why's that?"

"Because I'm-" his voice broke with the tears and shaking. There was so many things to say to that and he couldn't force any of them out of his throat, all the moreso for how true they were.

Ramsay laughed. "Oh, but I'm taking you along anyway, Reek."

He opened his eyes and stared in confusion. "You are?" he choked out.

"Oh yes. You see, I know you've been thinking about that old story about Robb Stark and the Prince of the Iron Islands - you dream of him, don't you? You hope that one day you might find him and be happy."

He spoke quickly in his terror, "No my Lord I-"

But he was cut off by Ramsay pulling him to his feet by his hair and dragging him to another room, in front of a dusty looking glass, and wiping some of the dust away so that they could see themselves. "You see yourself there, Reek?"

He did, or just about, through the tears. His hair had gone white, his face pale and gaunt. His nose misshapen by being broken a dozen times, his lip and eyelids swollen and bruised, a number of teeth knocked out inside his mouth.

Ramsay's arm was now over his shoulder, stroking a painful cheek not quite gently enough not to hurt. "Do you think you look like a Prince of the Iron Islands, my Reek?" he whispered.

He hung and shook his head.

"And even if somehow you did, do you really think _Prince Robb Stark_ would want anything to do with a dirty, disgusting, incompetent little whore like you?"

He shook his head harder and sobbed silently.

"No. He wouldn't. But I know how dreams are, so we'll take you along and prove it to you, Reek." He stroked his thin hair, "It'll be a kindness really, won't it?"

"Yes my Lord," he whispered.

"Now stay and clean all of this mirror, and remind yourself of who and what you are. We'll pretty you up a little for the feast, but it'd be cruel to let you believe that that'll make any difference."

 

Reek ended up cleaning most of it with his own tears, until he was so dehydrated that he simply couldn't cry anymore.

 

\-----

 

He didn't want to go by the time the day of the feast came, but he knew Lord Ramsay was set on it, so he didn't complain. He'd been given fewer beatings around the face as it approached, but it was made up with harder ones beneath his clothes. His arm still felt broken and now he feared at least one rib was too. With his white hair and painful shuffling he must have looked triple his age. Ramsay would make his point.

They arrived amongst all the other Northern houses and Reek kept his head down. He wanted no attention, knew that Ramsay would punish him later if he drew too much. Call him a whore and treat him as such. He knew one day he might finally follow through on his threats and take his cock, as he had done with his balls. Fortunately nobody noticed the meek servant. Reek, Reek, it rhymed with meek. And freak. And weak. And so many other things that he was. He had been named well. Nowhere should he even begin to have hope for Prince Robb.

Yet when the man entered the Great Hall, Reek's heart skipped a beat. He had grown tall and strong and handsome, though he still had the red hair, the bright blue eyes, the gorgeous warm smile. He wanted to go to him, have that smile directed at him, and be held in those arms. Have snowball fights in the cold and then warm up together by the fire eating sugared treats. He _wanted,_ so _badly_. He didn't even hear the words the man was actually saying, watching as Prince Robb addressed the crowd, eyes slowly scanning over them until they reached him- 

And then slid on past as if he wasn't even there. The gasp he gave cut through his chest like a knife, tears sprouting immediately, but the Prince's speech continued.

"You see, Reek?" Ramsay whispered against his ear. "You're nobody to him but the ugliest face in the crowd. And now you cry like a woman. I won't have you make a fool of us like this, you attention-seeking whore, leave quietly and wait by the cart if you can't control yourself."

Reek did so, trying to hide his face as he left - until he got outside and broke down sobbing loudly and uncontrollably in the snow. He was Reek, it was all he was, all he could ever hope to be. If ever he was anybody else before, that was long gone, along with anyone else who had known him. He was nothing and nobody, his future destined to be Ramsay's play thing until he got tired of him. He couldn't live like this. He couldn't _be this_. He couldn't face Ramsay again, didn't want to ever see anyone else again.

He pushed himself up off the snow and wandered off across the grounds, away from the heat and light and _people_ of the feast. He wouldn't go to the cart - if Ramsay wanted him he could find and drag him back. There was nothing good or hopeful left of him to be punished or crushed. Ramsay could take everything, it wouldn't matter.

He didn't even realise where he was going until he was there and recognised it - the place where they had kissed. Icicles hung from the nearby tree, the lake frozen over. This was the last place he remembered truly living. He decided that this was the place he should die. 

He went down to the icy water's edge, sat on the bank and stamped as hard as he could, again and again, until it broke down into pieces. Then he stood, took a moment to remember the sheer beauty and perfection of _that kiss_... 

And then let himself fall into the water, bitter, _burning_ cold, but he forced himself to draw breaths of and through it until everything went black, trying to make the last thought in his head Robb rather than Ramsay. _Robb._

 

 

 

Something was pressing hard again and again against his chest, and his skin was somehow cold and burning in heavy clothes, and his mouth and lungs felt full of water- he turned his head and spat it out, coughing to get air. He blinked off ice- and saw copper curls and blue eyes beneath them, wide in concern as he continued to push his chest and made orders for blankets to somebody. "My Prince..." he could little more than whisper.

Robb looked at him in surprise and confusion. "Do I know you?"

 _No. Not anymore._ He looked away, too painful to see, like staring into the Sun.

"He's just a disobedient servant," he heard Ramsay call from the gathered crowd, and his eyes filled up with tears.

_Why, Robb? Why did you have to save me, you don't know what you've done._

"Can you breathe now?" Robb asked and he nodded slightly. 

Robb took his arm to help him up- And he screamed at the pain, vision going white and passing out.

 

 

 

He awoke shivering, but _comfortable_ , and felt himself fill with fear; this must be some trick of Ramsay's, Reek had to sleep on the floor, he'd never be allowed a comfortable bed- he barely opened his eyes and tried to move and scamper away, but his arm and ribs hurt and he felt so weak that he could barely shift at all, wincing at the pain. He suddenly felt a hand push him down and flinched away, sure it must be Ramsay-

"Calm down; you're okay. You're safe here."

 _Robb?!_ Then the memories came back. He dared to look at him, so painfully handsome and what he wanted, but there was no recognition there. Only concern, which was more than he usually got. 

He slowly raised his good arm to rub his eyes- and saw that he wasn't wearing his gloves, or much of anything. Robb could see his missing fingers. What else had been seen? He looked slowly and fearfully at him from the corner of his eye.

"What happened to those fingers?"

He swallowed. If Ramsay got his hands on him he'd be killed for telling. "They got infected."

"And what of your back?"

What _of_ his back? He couldn't remember exactly what had been done to it. But he could remember what Ramsay had said. "I'm a disobedient servant."

"How did you end up in the lake?"

"I- I slipped and fell, your grace."

"That was thick ice to simply fall through for one so light as you."

He shrugged.

"Who's your master?"

Robb sounded angry beneath the calm. He suspected most of what was going on. But if Ramsay survived any punishment he was given... He swallowed and said nothing.

"Tell me, I won't let him hurt you."

He wanted to believe that so much, and now the tears were starting to fall again. He was pathetic.

"What's your name?"

He shook his head, he wouldn't say it to him.

"Please, I want to help you."

Of course he would, but Robb couldn't and he wouldn't risk it... "I can't Robb, _please,_ " he cried, before suddenly realising what he'd said, and noticing how still Robb had gone.

Then Robb's hands hesitantly gripped his head and tilted it towards the light. He couldn't look Robb in the face, but from the choked gasp the prince gave as he released him, it didn't matter. " _Theon...?_ "

That broke him, his entire body wracked with sobs, the pain in his ribs only serving to make it worse.

" _Theon..._ " Robb's voice was faint and almost disbelieving. 

Gods, what must Robb think of him like this, looking like this, crying like this, _being_ like this. He wasn't Prince Theon now: he was nothing.

But Robb came close again, sitting on the edge of the bed and, avoiding his broken arm, gently wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. "Theon, oh Theon..."

He gave up and just let himself cry into Robb's shoulder for now, savour it while it lasted, finally being back in Robb's arms. 

After a few minutes Robb pushed him back to arm's length, and he saw that the prince had tears on his face too, but his soft and gentle blue eyes were now hard and blazing like fire. "Who was it? I'll have their head, I swear it."

He still hesitated.

"Theon, I am the Prince of Winterfell and somebody has done all of this to you. I will have every other person in that Hall with their sword at the person or _persons_ ' throat with a command."

Theon drew a couple of breaths before finally managing to whisper, "Ramsay Bolton. And his men."

Robb gently let go of him and marched out. Somehow Theon - so strange to think that name again, it felt wrong - feared that Ramsay would instinctively know that he'd said it and come charging through the door to kill him, or slip in through the window and drag him out into the night and back _'home'_.

But when the door opened again it was only Robb returning, still looking distracted and furious. "I've sent guards to make the arrests. I don't wish to leave you."

"You have no idea how much I've missed you," he whispered. "Not just now, but the whole time..."

Robb climbed back on to the bed, lying next to him and gently pulling him into his arms. "I felt the same. Though I never _imagined..._ I thought you went back to Pyke and forgot about me."

Theon laughed incredulously, the pain in his ribs sharp but only serving how hollow it felt. "I never forgot you for a second. Ramsay tried to make me. He brought me here to prove how stupid I was in thinking you would have me now, because you were the only hope I had left."

Robb sniffed, still crying a little for his sake, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "How did you end up in his hands anyway? Didn't your family try to rescue you?"

Theon grinned wryly. "They were the ones who gave me to him in the first place, my father and brothers."

"What? _Why?_ They couldn't have _known-_ "

"I'm fairly certain they did. They-" He sighed and stifled the bitter tears. "When I came back from Winterfell it didn't take long before my father figured out my feelings after he caught me trying to write to you. And, going along with the attempts to foster better relations or not, he hates your family and The North. So he and my brothers... Well, Ramsay wasn't the first one to break my nose and ribs."

Theon could hear and feel Robb's choked and outraged gasp with his head against Robb's chest, then breathing harder in his fury. It was almost soothing somehow. Maybe since somebody was finally on his side. "And then they gave you to Bolton?"

"I don't know if they gave or sold me, but yes. I think they knew roughly how I was going to be treated. And I wouldn't pose a great threat to the throne, especially after- after I was gelded."

"They're wrong."

"Huh?"

"This is war."

Theon looked up at Robb, who was staring death into the opposite wall. "You can't go to war over this."

"Watch me."

"My treatment is not an international problem. Bolton's a Northman himself, and I don't matter to your bannermen."

"You were treated this way because of your affection for a Northman and The North. If I can convince my father - and one good look at you probably will - there will be war. You'll have that throne."

Theon sighed. "I may be angry at my father and brothers, but I don't want a throne, I'd just like not to have to live the way I have been for the past however many years. And I can't have children, what would be the point?"

Robb looked a little frustrated at that. "What of your sister?"

"I don't know. She and my mother weren't there when they beat me. I don't know if they knew and agreed or disagreed."

"Perhaps she and her children could be your heirs..."

Theon let him ponder in silence; it wouldn't happen in any case, so it didn't matter.

After a while Robb sighed. "You tried to kill yourself in that lake, didn't you? I can't believe you didn't even try to tell me who you were first, as though I wouldn't care or help you!"

"And when should I have told you, when I had Bolton at my side? The only hope was that you might somehow recognise me anyway, which you couldn't, though I don't blame you. And what does all of this accomplish in any case?"

"What do you mean?" Robb frowned. "We're together again."

"For how long?"

"However long you wish. Do you want to go?"

"No, but..." he sighed painfully, tears beginning to well yet again. "You don't know, Robb. You don't know what's happened, the things I've _done,_ they made me do - you need better than me-"

Robb moved so they were face-to-face, and his eyes were glistening in response. "I don't care. I don't care what you've done, what they made you do, what you had to do to survive. Theon, do you have _any_ idea how much I've missed you?!"

"Probably not so much as I missed you, considering." Theon tried to smile.

"Do you... Do you need to talk about all of the things that happened?"

"Why?"

"Well, if you need to then I will listen, but I'm conscious of the fact that honour dictates that - once they're given the death sentence - their heads will be taken cleanly off with only one or two strikes of a blade, while I'm already more inclined to use a rusty bread knife that would be so slow that they would die of the infection before the cut."

Theon laughed in shock and surprise. "I never knew you had such an imagination."

"I never imagined such cruel people could exist. They deserve worse."

"Just keep me safe for now. I don't need to talk yet."

"Alright, go to sleep. I won't leave you unless or until they're captured and I'll come back after that."

"Alright." Theon shifted slightly for comfort and closed his eyes. And then panicked. "This isn't a dream, is it? Promise me this isn't a dream. I couldn't take that."

Robb leaned over and kissed him on the lips. Then gently pinched his lower lip with his teeth. "Did you wake up?"

Theon swallowed, heart fluttering. "No."

"Then I think you're safe to sleep."

 

\-----

 

"Princess Asha wishes to see you, your grace."

Theon went to meet her. She was fairer than he would have expected from what he remembered. "Sister."

"Let's see you then."

"It's a little cold in the North to just strip off like that." Besides, Theon could see her glancing to his bare hands and around his face, which still bore scars even if not as badly as it used to.

She gave a heavy sigh. "Little brother..."

"Did you know?" he wasn't going to let her get to him until he knew.

"We were told that you'd fallen for the North and a Northerner and so you'd been disinherited and sent away. I think everyone figured you'd probably had a beating for it before you were sent, but... I don't know, I think I assumed you were just a part of somebody's else's court in the greenlands, perhaps working for a noble. I never would have imagined..."

"A lot of people I talk to don't seem to have wide enough imaginations."

"I'm sorry, little brother, for what happened to you."

"As am I. Would you like to look around?"

She looked a little wary, but agreed, and a couple of guards Theon had been assigned by Robb followed them as they went outside. "It's very cold and snowy here," she noted awkwardly.

"Yes. But beautiful some days."

They wandered for a bit, Theon noting things here and there while his sister watched him suspiciously.

"And just here would be the place Robb and I first kissed. And where I tried to drown myself a few weeks ago." Theon had had to promise Robb a hundred times he wouldn't do something like that again while he was gone, though Robb's mother and younger siblings were still there to keep an eye on him anyway.

Asha sighed frustration, "Brother..."

He ignored her and led on. "And here are my captors," he said, looking up at the now greatly decayed heads of Ramsay and his men; once they had gotten wind that Robb knew the truth they had tried to run, but not far or fast enough: they were dragged back, denounced and beheaded. With Robb gone to war Theon had found himself coming out here and watching the crows strip the skin from their skulls and peck out their eyes. It ought to have been gruesome, but he found it a little therapeutic. 

"So do you plan to put father, Rodrik and Maron's heads up there with them?"

"Believe it or not, I didn't ask for this war, Asha. I don't want the throne. Thanks to father's arrangement, I can't even produce heirs anyway," Asha winced a little at that information. "I just wanted to be away and safe and reunited with Robb. Robb demanded vengeance, and his father said they already had sufficient cause for war with father anyway. I'd like _some_ justice, but that doesn't even have to be death."

"So who is to have the throne, if not you?"

"Robb plans to give it to me to spite father, but I don't even want to return to Pyke. I plan to stay here with Robb so long as I'm allowed."

"And who, exactly, is to rule in your stead? They won't accept a Northman," she warned, "they'd try to overthrow any attempt."

"Well, given that you don't seem to have been in on my treatment, how would you like being Princess Regent? Or Queen, sooner or later."

She looked surprised and then frowned. "Your approval is likely to mean the islanders' disapproval after the war."

He shrugged, "Give it to one of our uncles then or something. It doesn't matter to me anymore."

She looked sad amongst her anger and frustration and then - to Theon's surprise, pulled him into a _hug_. "Theon... If those men's heads weren't already spiked, I'd be doing it myself."

"Shame we didn't know sooner; Robb might have just about been tempted into letting you use a more painful method on them."

"He best treat you well, that Northman prince."

"He'd struggle to treat me worse than anyone else has."

She ruffled his hair - slowly becoming greyer on its way to being black again - sadly. "I'm not going to fight against your side, but if I'm to take over I'm not fighting on it either."

"I'm sure you'll be great."

 

\-----

 

They won the war, and Robb returned safely. Theon's father and eldest brother were killed in the fighting, Maron taken alive and sent to the Wall. Theon had been offered the opportunity to go back to Pyke, even just for a visit, but he declined. He planned to live and die in Winterfell if he could, and Robb said he could.

He was happier than he'd been in years, strolling the grounds, arm in arm in with Robb. Theon was slowly recovering, wounds healing, trust building, nightmares lessening, and Robb was very patient about all of it. He couldn't regain everything he'd lost, but it was more than he'd expected to ever have again.

Once again they came upon their place beside the lake. "I wish I'd never left. We could have kissed here every day."

"Wouldn't have appreciated it half so much though."

"No... Robb?" Theon finally found himself having to ask. "You're not just keeping me here because of guilt and pity, are you? Because-"

"Do you know why I was the one who saved you from the lake?" Robb interjected.

Theon hadn't really considered that. He assumed it was a twist of fate. "Because nobody else saw it as reason enough to risk getting their clothes wet?"

Robb frowned as he always did at Theon's undervaluing himself, at least as Robb considered it. "I would come out here all the time and think of you. It's why I was holding that feast and had held others before it: somehow I hoped that maybe, sooner or later, you would attend and I could see you again, even just to look at you." Theon held his tongue about what he must have looked like when he _did_ attend. "That night... I thought you weren't there again, so I came out here to be alone and think of you. And that's when I found you in the water and called for help. It was never how I would have hoped or imagined it, but it was and you are what I wished for."

Theon wiped away what was definitely not sentimental tears and smiled at him. "I guess both our wishes came true." And then they kissed again, as they had when they were young, except Theon kept having to break away to smile and laugh at just how _happy_ he was that this was real. 

And then they sat in the snow, huddled together and just felt peaceful. "Do you want to pass by the heads again?" Robb asked after a while.

"On the way to toasting sugar treats over the fire? You read my mind."

 

End.


End file.
